National Structures: Cadence
A. National Forum: The "Ring" in which Factions Compete: Parliament 1. There is one common ground for all Factions: Parliament. All PC's start with a dot of Parliament Repute, which recognizes that the kindred upholds the most basic rules. This is akin to US citizenship- it is almost never lost, and has little practical effect limiting one's nightly unlife. B. What are the benefits for playing within these structures? 1. Optional, not mandatory: The National-level Structures are optional. No PC has to play in them. You can have a very fulfilling game experience participating in the local and perhaps even Regional structures of Clan, Covenant, and City. Do not feel like you *must* play with Factions and Parliament. 2. Yes, we can change. Keep in mind that change is designed into the Chronicle, and specifically noted in years two and three. So, if your PC hates these national structures after you try them out a bit, you can absolutely work to change them, or even overthrow them, so long as the basic norms espoused by Parliament remain intact for the good of the game. The mechanism can be modified; only those very few things that are necessary for good game play are immutable. Both Factions (individually and collectively) and Parliament can be changed by PC actions- and we expect that they will be. 3. Factions: See each Faction for its benefits a) s 4. Parliament: Keep in mind that this is Repute, meaning fame within kindred society, not Status, which represents power. No member of Parliament has power per se, just name recognition. We set this up in this manner because if there were Status in Parliament, we were concerned that players would see this as the "top" level and seek to play for control of Parliament to the detriment of pursuing power within Clan, Covenant, City, or Faction. Note that none of those four categories can clearly overrule any other. If Parliament were to change, as a result of PC action, to a political body rather than a basic set of norms, then the ST's would "demote" this body to be on par with the other four, or do away with it entirely and simply have these norms mystically enforced. We preferred to have a visible means of supporting societal norms, but the norms have to exist, even if the visible means of taken over or destroyed. a) Repute 1: b) Repute 2 (Prerequisite: City Status 3): Merits are protected from destruction akin to the Sanctity of Merits optional rule. Characters may recover lost merits without expending XP by instead devoting one personal Downtime action per dot to replacing the lost Merit. These personal actions cannot be performed by others, handed off to Retainers or Allies, etc. c) Repute 3 (Prerequisite: Clan or Covenant Status 5 or City Status 4 or Faction Status 3): Mortal support. The PC receives unspecified connections that provide additional downtime actions equal to (Repute-2); i.e., one additional action at Repute 3, two at 4, and three at 5. d) Repute 4 (Prerequisite: Regional Covenant leader or City Status 5 or Faction Status 4): Tracking actions. The Repute 4+ character can track the non-personal, NPC-performed downtime actions of one PC per two levels of Parliament Repute, round up (so two PC's at 4, three at 5), for one month. Downtime actions performed by the PC personally cannot be tracked in this way, but those performed by Retainers, Allies, or the connections described under Repute 3 can be tracked. To use this ability, the player of the Parliament Repute 4+ PC must contact the local ST of the PC (s)he wishes to track, CC'ing his or her own VST as well. The ST of the tracked character reviews the downtimes of the tracked character, edits the downtime report to only show the actions taken by others (such as Allies, Retainers, etc.), and passes that information along to the requesting player and their overseeing ST. e) Repute 5 (Prerequisite: Faction Status 5):The Repute 5 character is immune to the tracking abilities gained by Parliament Repute 4. f) Parliament Hierarchy of Sins (1) Refusal to honor a Boon; Commission of Diablerie (not exposure as a diablerist; the commission of the act is a sin that strips Parliament Repute immediately) (2) R (3) Attempting to permanently place any group or individual as the leader(s) of Parliament (4) R (5) R There is one common ground for all Factions: Parliament. All PC's start with a dot of Parliament Repute, which recognizes that the kindred upholds the most basic rules. (PC’s may reject this Repute if they wish, but see below for the penalties for doing so.) This is akin to national citizenship- it is almost never lost, and has little practical effect limiting one's nightly unlife. Parliament Repute is a necessity for some of the most basic needs in kindred unlife, specifically: - Recovering Willpower through use of a Virtue - The ability to purchase Humanity with XP - Normal draws to retain Humanity and avoid Derangement (that is, without Parliament Repute 1, characters suffer a -1 draw penalty to all Humanity checks and -3 to Derangement checks) Parliament is a vehicle for the ST’s to lock in a few, very basic social norms that are simply not to be crossed. These do not vary from ruler to ruler, and there is no ruler of Parliament. The Parliament is composed of the leaders of each of the Factions that make up Parliament itself and the Princes of the Domains (of the US, but this could be expanded if desired by the other affiliates). At Parliament Repute 2+, characters gain the benefit of a modified Sanctity of Merits rule. Merits that are destroyed may be regained by expending downtime actions, but they do not require XP. One downtime action is required for every two XP a Merit would have required to re-purchase. For example, Patty PC burns down Carl Character’s Haven. The Haven, a Location 5, Security 1, Size 5 Merit, would normally be gone. However, Carl has Status 3 in his Faction, so instead of 62 XP, he can rebuild his immense mansion for 31 downtime actions. Carl can also delegate those actions, so if Carl is an Invictus with 6 Retainers, he can use 2 of his own actions each month and 6 from his Retainers to rebuild that Haven within four months. For a simpler action, such as if Patty seduces away Carl’s one-dot Ally, the Carl can recover an equivalent Ally with one downtime action. This helps to explain why adversary groups face such a challenge in remaining humane, and sane. Parliament offers very basic benefits, but asks only very basic things. (Exactly what those things are will be worked out by consensus.)